


Pendulum

by renwhit



Series: Road to Damascus [8]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, At no point is direct abuse shown, BPD Tim, But it's never graphic, Canonical Character Death, Child Neglect, Complicated Relationships, Discussions of Homophobia, End!Tim, Flashbacks, Gen, Ghost!Tim, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Canonical Character Undeath, There's conversation that goes into what's already been said, Trans Sasha James, You can pry Tim and Basira's friendship from my cold dead hands, brief dissociation, discussions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renwhit/pseuds/renwhit
Summary: “What do you do when you try to go home and find that everything inside was rearranged?”Tim tried not to think of Sasha. Of the thing that replaced her, rearranged her inside and out. Of the thing that he — shoulders, hands, mouth — believedwasher.He didn’t succeed.“You try to understand what changed, and you reacclimate. Maybe stay on a friend’s couch for a bit if you need to.”Or, in which finding one’s place in the world is difficult — dead or alive.
Relationships: Background Basira Hussain & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Background Georgie Barker/Melanie King - Relationship, Background Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Background Jonathan Sims & Martin Blackwood, Basira Hussain & Tim Stoker, Danny Stoker & Tim Stoker, Georgie Barker & Tim Stoker, Implied Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Sasha James & Tim Stoker, implied Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Series: Road to Damascus [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594225
Comments: 82
Kudos: 396
Collections: GerryTitan verse





	Pendulum

**Author's Note:**

> few things before we kick this one off!
> 
> 1\. like i say in the tags **no abuse is ever shown directly**! this one elaborates more on things tim has already said or alluded to, but it's at no point graphic  
> 2\. we do some timeline hopping in this one! scenes move in past->present->past sequence and it should be clear when they fall, but if it gets too confusing i have the chronological order listen in the end note  
> 3\. [we've got more fanart, this time of tim and oliver kickin it!!!!!](https://titanfalling.tumblr.com/post/612440911744532480/fytelciiut-pov-you-are-a-passerby-trying-very) the detail of this one is STILL making me lose it (like..they nailed my designs down to placement of tim's scars i have in my own art it's so excellent)
> 
> as always, new arrivals - be sure to read the rest of the series before this one!
> 
> suggested listening:  
> past - songs for teenagers by fake problems  
> present - disease by beartooth

“Timmy!”

Danny’s voice was easy to catch even past the sort of ruckus only a pack of other eleven-year-olds could make. His mop of black hair hung past the frames of his square glasses as he darted through the crowd before nearly running right into Tim. Before Danny could crash into him, Tim put out one arm to catch Danny’s forehead in the palm of his hand. 

Twig-skinny arms swept towards Tim, trying to snatch onto his shirt or backpack straps in some way to break the hold. Without missing a beat and despite his struggle, Danny chirped, “Dad’s house, right?”

“Yep,” Tim replied as he swung Danny around to wrap his arm around his shoulders. “So no dealing with the bus.”

Danny made a quick scan of the parking lot and looked unsurprised at the lack of any familiar car. “No pickup?”

“Nah, I think Dad’s on some trip. He probably left a note at the house about it.” 

With tentative excitement, Danny looked over to Tim. “...Can we order pizza for dinner?”

Tim pretended to deliberate for a long moment. Their dad always left some cash with his somewhat-apologetic notes, and Tim was an old hand at figuring out a good ratio between takeout and actual good _food_ for him and Danny at this point. “Hm… Depends on what you got on that history project you had.”

Like Tim knew he would, Danny lit right up. Their class was spending time on ancient Egypt, and for some reason Danny had gotten stuck on the specifics of Egyptian funerary rites and associated deities. He spent plenty of car rides with their mum going on about Anubis, Osiris, Horus, and a thousand other names Tim could barely keep straight. As long as he could follow along enough to ask Danny questions every so often and keep that ball of excitement rolling, he figured that was good enough. 

“I got full marks!” Danny said with a wide grin. “And some bonus points for talking about how Ra’s journey every night passed through different parts of what they believed about the afterlife!” 

Right, Tim remembered him chattering on about that not long before his presentation — largely because he insisted on getting a few massive bags of gummy worms to pass out to his classmates “to show how many snakes are there in the whole sun boat trip, because there’s a _lot_ of snakes, Timmy. A _lot_ of snakes.” 

Tim had told him he should just skip the kiddy stuff and buy up every snake in every pet store they could walk to, then release them in the middle of his presentation. Danny didn’t even turn down the idea, only pointed out that the store closest to them wouldn’t sell anything to kids under sixteen. They could reconvene in a couple of years when Tim hit that age, but until then it was gummy worms or nothing. 

“Then I _guess…_ we could _maybe… possibly…”_ _  
_

_“Tim!”_

“Yeah, fine, we’ll get pizza,” Tim relented with a grin as he tugged Danny into a headlock. “My nerd little brother was his nerd little self, you’ve earned it!” The praise was somewhat dampened by Danny’s loud struggles and protests, but that was simply the way of things.

Once free, Danny let out a loud cheer. “Pineapple!”

“Still allergic. If this is some plan to assassinate me, nice try.”

Danny made a show of snapping and groaning in disappointment. “Fine, just mushrooms, I _guess._ ” 

“Half mushroom, half sausage ‘til _you_ get better taste,” Tim replied as he cuffed the back of Danny’s head, and got a stuck-out tongue in return.

By the time they got to their dad’s house, Danny had outlined his whole day with plenty of bouncing around between classes, friends, and things that Tim couldn’t begin to guess where they connected to anything else. Same as usual, there. He nodded along, asked a question as he unlocked the door, and Danny kept rolling on without trouble. 

A note waited for them next to a small stack of bills.

_Boys,_

_Sorry I couldn’t be home this week — Christine and I are in New Orleans for a work trip. I’ll keep an eye out for anything that says Tim or Dan!_

_Dad_

“Is he still trying to make Dan a thing?” Danny asked from Tim’s elbow. 

Which part of working in stocks required their dad to be in America, much less New Orleans, Tim couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t even a good lie. Why did he bother?

“Guess so. Hey Danny, who am I?” Tim put on a stiff, low voice. “I promise I’ll be home whenever you’re with me, boys! _Someone_ should show you what a parent who doesn’t yell and bitch and nag is like!”

Danny snorted. “You’re our Pizza Bank Account!”

“Nailed it,” Tim said as he folded the bills and tucked them in his pocket.

“Are you gonna tell Mum he left us home alone again?”

“Uh, no.” Tim rubbed his forehead at the thought. “I don’t want to hear about it for the next month. Unless you really feel like going to court again, anyway.”

Before he could crumple up the note, Danny peered over at it again. “Who’s Christine?”

“New girlfriend, I guess.”

“Goodbye, Janelle,” Danny declared as he tossed his backpack onto the nearest couch. “You won’t be missed.”

Danny flopped himself down next to his bag, then hesitated a long moment before asking his next question. “Did they split up because you told Dad she smacked you that one time?” When Tim didn’t say anything, Danny sat up further. “You told him, right?”

Tim picked up one of useless, decorative pillows on the couch to whap Danny in the face. “Hey, you’re fine, I’m fine, she’s gone. You gonna start your homework? Because I could still order anchovies on the whole pizza.”

The redirection worked like a charm, and Danny made an overdramatic face of disgust before diving for his backpack. 

No, Tim hadn’t told their dad. He didn’t _think_ their dad would let something like that slide, but if he was wrong, he really didn’t want to know. If anything, he was just sorry Danny saw. 

It didn’t matter either way. Come the end of the week, they’d be told to leave here and go to their mum’s house, and again in reverse at the end of that week. None of it lasted. Not places, not people. It was just him and Danny, and that was okay. It would have to be okay.

And, when Danny opened the pizza box later that night to find half of it covered in pineapple, his responding grin made Tim think that just maybe, it was.

* * *

“Tim?”

It was difficult to look up at Georgie with the Admiral perched on his shoulder and doing its level best to climb up on top of his head, but Tim gave it a shot. 

“Yeah, what’s — _ow,_ stop eating my hair — what’s up?”

“Can we talk?”

At her tone, Tim paused from where he was attempting to extract the Admiral’s paws from his head. Georgie’s lips were pressed tight together, but she made steady eye contact without hesitating. 

“...Something wrong?”

“No, just—” With a short sigh, she cut herself off, then gestured to the living room. “Let’s sit.”

Apprehension churned low under Tim’s lungs, but he nodded anyway and settled on the left side of the couch with the Admiral in his lap. Georgie sat near him, but unlike normal didn’t sit close enough that their shoulders brushed or legs pressed together. Tim tried not to read too much into it. 

There was a long minute of quiet. Tim assumed Georgie needed to gather her thoughts, and occupied himself instead with scratching the Admiral under its chin as it purred away.

“Melanie is going to be staying here. She’s moving in, for at least a bit.”

Tim gave a tentative smile. “S’good that things are working out for you guys, yeah? Are you just warning me to keep an eye out for a tie hung on the front doorknob or something?”

“No, nothing like that." She attempted a weak laugh. “She’s just… She’s going to be vulnerable for a while. I don’t know how long, but a while.”

Vulnerable? What did— Oh. _Oh._

“She’s quitting, isn’t she?” Tim hadn’t really known how to take it when Jon told them it was possible, and what one had to do to escape. It didn’t matter for him at this point.

“Yeah,” Georgie said with a single, firm nod. “She is. And I need to give her somewhere separate from all— all that. I don’t like what she’s doing, but it’s the only way out for her, and if she’s going to mutilate herself to be free from it then I’m going to make damn sure none of… _that_ is here.”

She didn’t need to spell it out. Tim knew what she meant.

“Including me.”

Georgie looked sorrowful, but she didn’t argue. “I hate doing this, Tim, but—”

“Hey, I get it.” He did, as much as the slow ache building in his chest made him want to protest. “I don’t blame her for wanting to get out, and you’ve got to prioritize her.” 

The Admiral stretched up to run its face along Tim’s jaw, just like it had the very first time Tim came over. Like it so often had the dozen times since, times when he could toss himself onto Georgie’s couch to stroke its soft fur and relish the warmth and weight. Georgie was always extra tactile with him — in the few times he was here the same time as Melanie, it was clear she made more of a point to tap his shoulder to grab his attention, or bump him with her elbow as they passed in the hall, or rest a hand in his hair when she leaned over the back of the couch he sat on. Small, inconsequential things that added up to a gift she gave freely.

A gift that she now had to take back. Someone else needed it more. 

Tim’s jaw went tight, but he wasn’t self-absorbed enough to argue. She hadn’t needed to bring him into her home in the first place, and he’d been a right prick to her to start with. She’d patiently waited for him to get over himself and stop trying to shove her away, then situated herself as rock and refuge. From the beginning to now, she gave her home and her care without expecting anything in return.

It was never going to last forever, was it? Nothing did. It was a cornerstone of the End, and him understanding that was one of the reasons he and Georgie bonded as quickly as they did. They both knew that everything and everyone ended. 

Tim had appreciated it while he had it, and now it was gone. That was how it all worked.

With one last stroke down its back, Tim gently lifted the Admiral out of his lap to deposit it on the floor. It wound around his ankles for a brief moment before darting off back down the hall. 

Georgie had none of the anxious fidgets so many others in Tim’s life did. She didn’t drum her fingers; she didn’t fiddle with any of her long braids; she didn’t avoid eye contact. Her shoulders were squared and her eyes, though apologetic, were firm. Resolute. She made the call she needed to make. Whether or not she liked having fallout didn’t matter — it needed to be done. Melanie needed somewhere safe, so Georgie would make her home safe. That was all there was to it. 

When he stood, so did she as he walked to the front door. He opened it rather than just step through like he normally would, but before he left turned back one last time. The goodbye he meant for died on his lips when he met Georgie’s sad, steady eyes. 

“Can—” Tim’s teeth dug into the inside of his cheek as if that’d keep a last request firmly inside, but it was no use. “Can I have a hug? Before I go, I mean.”

The words dragged like thorns up his throat, and if Georgie’s face was anything to go by, they landed just as sharp. She said nothing, only nodded and raised sturdy arms.

Being taller than her took none of the safety that came with her embrace. Tim buried his face against the junction of her shoulder and neck, and tried to memorize how she kept the perfect amount of pressure wrapped around him; how warm she was; how her chest fell and rose with steady breath. He gripped back with that same firmness in hopes that deep pressure might sate the itch of touch starvation under his skin just a little longer. 

It was a long time before Tim finally accepted that she wasn’t going to pull away first. He would have to be the one to step back, and for a reason he couldn’t fully word, that hurt most. 

It hurt to let go. It hurt to give Georgie a small, tight smile and a quiet, “See you around, then.” 

It hurt when Georgie’s head dipped with some attempt at reassurance as she said, “It might not be forever. If something changes, I’ll let you know, yeah?”

“I don’t exactly have a phone, Georgie,” Tim said with a helpless smile. “It’s alright. This was never going to be forever.” He didn’t know if it was cruelty or kindness that made him follow with, “It’s all a single moment, right?” He didn’t know if it brought condemnation or absolution. He didn’t know how he would survive being _without_ again. 

Before she could reply, he gave her one last nod. The door shut behind him, and the moment ended.

* * *

“Hi, how can I— Tim?”

As Sasha opened the door, her voice slipped down from its higher register once she realized who stood on the other side. It was for the best — he knew keeping her voice high all day strained her throat, and he didn’t care which register she used around him.

“Hey.” He attempted a casual smile, hand tight on the strap of his backpack. “Can I, um… Can I come in?”

“Y-yeah, of course.” She stepped to the side to let him through with obvious worry. “Is everything okay? Did something happen on your date with Henry?”

Tim dropped his backpack by the large, overstuffed couch in her family’s living room, then sank down onto it. “No. No, it was fine, it was— it was nice.” He shook his head, still a little breathless from his trip to her house. “Really nice.” 

When he didn’t continue, she sat next to him and studied his face, patient the whole while. Her dark brown hair was in a short, messy braid, barely long enough for the style. Tim’s own bangs hung in his eyes. He was still figuring out how the hell to manage his hair, but he wasn’t going to back out of his agreement with Sasha even though she was out to their school now. If him wrestling with bobby pins helped her feel a little more secure with longer hair, then by all means. 

“Is Danny okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.” Danny knew he was going to Sasha’s, and Tim didn’t worry about getting sold out. Even though he was as much of a pain as any thirteen-year-old, he wouldn’t do that. “No, um. Henry kissed me.”

Sasha’s brows knit. “Did you not want him to?”

“No, I-I did, it was… it was nice.” Despite all this, despite everything, Tim wouldn’t regret that part. 

He let his head fall back to rest on the back of the couch, resolutely not looking at Sasha. 

“My dad came home from his trip early.” The soft hiss from Sasha meant she caught on with no trouble. “He never comes home early, _never!_ When he says he’s gonna be gone the whole week, he’s gone the _whole_ week!” Hands gesticulating wildly, Tim sat forward on the couch. “I asked why he was home, he asked why I thought I could kiss—” He could only finish the sentence with a wordless sound of anger, one fist slamming down onto his thigh. 

Sasha’s face was drawn in concern. “Did— did he tell you to go?” 

Their friend group knew well enough what his mum was like, though he went to his friend Jordan the couple times that happened since they were in walking distance from her house. They weren’t the gossipy sort and wouldn’t have told anyone if Tim asked them not to, but he wasn’t built for secrets.

He shook his head. “I grabbed my bag and walked out. Can’t kick me out if I leave first, right?”

“He didn’t try to stop you?”

Tim shrugged, and Sasha didn’t ask further. 

“Okay, um… I’ll let my mum and dad know, but they’ll be okay with you spending the night here. We don’t have a guest room or anything, but there might be an air mattress…?”

“The couch is fine,” Tim said with a short swipe of his hand through the air. “I don’t care.”

Sasha patted him once more on the shoulder, then hurried off towards her parents’ room. Loving, lovely parents. Still together. Tim had never heard them fight. 

When Sasha came back, it was with her mum in tow. Tim sat up and tried to smile as he gave her a small wave. “Hi, Mrs. James. Sorry about all this.”

Mrs. James shook her head, expression equal parts warm and grieved. “It’s quite alright. Sasha, sweetheart, grab some blankets from the hall closet?”

“Got it!” Sasha said as she rushed off.

No hesitation calling her the proper name. Far as Tim knew, they took her coming out and subsequent transition with as much grace as could be expected from confused but ultimately loving parents.

Christ, what kind of jerk was he, to envy his friend because she was never kicked out of her house? Did he _want_ her parents to transphobic dicks as much as his own were homophobic?

Mrs. James wrung her fingers together as she watched before putting a tentative hand on his upper back. “Can I… Would you like some tea?”

“M’fine. Thanks.” The hand withdrew, and he wasn’t sure if he was sorry about it.

Sasha came back with a thick duvet folded in her freckly arms and a couple pillows balanced on top. “I don’t know where the pillowcases are, but—”

“It’s fine, Sash.” Part of Tim knew that any other time he’d make some ridiculous scene about how he couldn’t _possibly_ survive without _pillowcases,_ what kind of commoner did he _look like, Sasha?_

Didn’t have the energy for it. He used it all in the shouting match earlier. How he made it to Sasha’s house without crumbling, he had no idea.

Sasha and her mum talked for another moment, but Tim wasn’t listening. He only stared at the hand still curled in a fist on his knee. Nails unpainted. His dad hated the nail polish. G-d, he was tired.

As Sasha sat next to him again, he realized her mum had left. Maybe to give them space or something, he didn’t know. 

When it struck him how badly he wanted a hug from his own mum, the anger that’d started to die flared back with a vengeance, this time at himself. Why the hell would she hug him right now when the reason he ran off was the same reason she’d kicked him out before? 

Maybe because it was his dad who did it this time. She could always be trusted to hate anything he did. Maybe she’d take Tim’s side. Maybe he could have called her, and she would’ve let him sleep at her house instead. Maybe she would have held him.

Maybe if he told his dad that the exact thing he was yelling and cursing about was something his mum hated, he would have changed his tune. As much as his mum hated everything his dad did, he hated everything she did in turn. Maybe he would have taken his words back. Maybe he would have told Tim that if she made him leave again, his dad would always take him in. Maybe he would have said he was sorry.

Tim tried desperately to hold onto that anger, but with the way his throat felt thick and tight, in the shake in his chin and his hard blinking, it was a battle already lost. 

“Tim?” Sasha bent forward to look him in the face. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t— I don’t get it, I’m still—” Every word tore itself free from his chest, raw and bleeding. “I’m still _me,_ I can’t—”

Long, wiry arms wrapped around him, and he broke. He crumpled sideways to land hard against Sasha’s chest. His cries were ugly, broken things that he couldn’t bear to listen to a moment longer and could in no way stop. All down his throat and through his chest felt molten. 

He’d never shed a tear when his mum kicked him out. Never. Why was it that now, when he was the one who grabbed his bag and walked out, when he _chose_ to go, that he was crying like a little kid? It didn’t make sense.

What did he do wrong? He just wanted to go home.

As Sasha held him close with one hand firmly against his back and the other running through his hair, she murmured, “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here. I’m right here.”

Home wasn’t a place. Home was people. Home was here, right here. Home was Sasha. Home was Henry. Home was his friends at school, his favorite English teacher, his track coach. Home was Danny. 

That would have to be enough.

* * *

“Tim?”

Tim looked up from his place leaned against the wall as he tossed around the old blue stress ball to meet Basira’s eyes from where she sat at her desk. “Hm?”

“Where do you go when you’re not here?”

“Uh, not anywhere in particular,” he answered. “I just walk around. Usually London, but sometimes farther. Why?”

Basira looked at him a moment longer. “Just wondering.” She turned back to her laptop.

With the back of one hand he swept away a stubborn bit of blood that’d been welling from behind his teeth for the past hour (Alfie Dawson, 59. Lung cancer.) With the other, he continued throwing the ball up and catching it, now in a much smaller movement. Just something to busy his hands while he studied Basira.

Her dark skin hid the purple bags under her eyes well enough, but now they were almost black. There was no hiding that. Her hijab was mussed.

All unsurprising considering she lived in the archives. Tim supposed he did too, as much as he “lived” anywhere. Without any need to eat or sleep, the parameters for what a house meant for him was just the place he ended up when he wasn’t doing something else. Witnessing.

Which meant the Institute. Of course.

“Do you have a flat?” 

Tim blinked out of his thoughts at the question. This time Basira wasn’t looking at him, eyes still fixed on her computer.

“Uh, no. I had a house before the Unknowing and all, but…” He tossed the ball up a little higher and watched it hang in the air for the briefest of seconds before plummeting back down. “I didn’t bother renewing my lease before that. Didn’t expect to need it.”

A pause. Understandable, considering the implications there. “Right.”

Again quiet, broken only by the clack of computer keys. The soft blue foam and plastic never made noise when it met Tim’s hand. Tossing it steadied him, listening to Basira quietly work steadied him, as much as he hated it being in the Institute steadied him. Solid as a rock, that was Tim.

“Jon and Daisy got a flat together.”

Earthquake. 

He dropped the stress ball.

“What?”

“They got a flat. Together.”

“Heard you the first time,” Tim replied as he picked up the ball again. “It’s just… good for them, I guess?”

Basira’s shoulders were tense enough Tim was sure he wouldn’t be able to count the number of knots there on both hands. “Right. Good for them.”

Computer keys clacked away, louder now. Basira might as well have been punching the keyboard with each finger.

“Alright, nope, not doing that.” Tim swung the other chair around to straddle it, arms folded across the back. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.” Basira didn’t look away, but at this point Tim thought she might just be typing gibberish into search engines if it made her look busy enough she didn’t have to meet his eyes.

Tim cocked his head, brow raised. “You wanted to know about my own living situation so we could get a fun jealousy flat for you and you could have your own disaster roommate?”

“What? No. It’s not that.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Basira’s hands went still, and she glared at him hard enough Tim thought she might be trying that same _destroy you with my spooky eyes_ thing Jon did to the delivery guy. At least she was looking at him now. Progress.

“Jon doesn’t even sleep there half the time.” It sounded more like she was telling herself than Tim. “And when he doesn’t, I stay with Daisy. She doesn’t do well alone.”

“Right.” Tim and Daisy hadn’t spent a ton of time together considering the hours he spent at the Institute were irregular on a good day, but when they did it was comfortable enough. He wasn’t bothered by the long stretches of quiet, and didn’t really care that she studied him like she was trying to figure out how the whole _ghost_ thing worked. Hell, if she managed to piece something together he hadn’t, he was all ears.

“And I stay at the Institute the rest of the time. Which is fine. It’s fine.” 

“Don’t have your own flat?” Tim asked.

Basira sighed. “I used to. I’ve never had much stuff, so I just… consolidated. Storage is cheaper than a flat, and I sleep here all the time anyway. When you and Jon and Daisy were all gone—”

“Dead, dead, Buried. Busy folk.”

“—Melanie and I couldn’t go home much. The Flesh attack was the biggest one, but sometimes smaller things would come out. We just ended up living here. It was safer.”

Damn, Tim hadn’t even thought about that. Six months more of carrying the Institute’s safety, _right_ after the Unknowing. Easier with the help of Melanie, harder with the assumed death of Daisy. 

Daisy wasn’t dead. Daisy was different. Tim wasn’t sure where Basira drew the line between the two, especially if she had thought she might have some help keeping everyone in here alive. He could swear up and down that he’d be there if shit broke bad, but that didn’t hold a candle to however many years they’d been partners. 

“And now she’s got a flat with Jon. Not you. Guessing that’s the point you’re stuck on?”

Basira rubbed her eyes with a hand like she was trying to press away a tension headache. “She knows I stay here. She knows it’s better for Jon to have a place she can drag him to get out of here sometimes. It makes sense, and she can make her own decisions.”

“...But just because something makes sense, that doesn’t make it easy to deal with.” Tim thought of Georgie at that, but pushed it aside. This wasn’t about him.

“I stay there near as much as he does, I don’t get why it’s so—!” Whatever it was _so_ , she didn’t have the word, and could only finish the sentence with a broad gesture as she sat further upright. 

“Because it’s not yours and Daisy’s. It’s his and Daisy’s.”

“And it’s good for them. It’s good.”

“Sure. It’s still not _your_ home. It can be good for them and hard for you.”

She glared at him. “I know that.”

“Do you? ‘Cause it sure doesn’t seem like it,” Tim countered. Maybe he was being a little too blunt, but if _a little too blunt_ didn’t describe Basira all over, he didn’t know what did. 

If he thought Basira might be trying to kill him with a look before, it was nothing compared to now. “So you think I should just tell her to make him go so I can move in instead?”

“That’s not what I said. I said you want a home with her.” He didn’t ruffle at her hard tone, not when he understood it as much as he did. “And considering how long she’s been your home, it makes sense.”

“Been my home?” Basira traded the glare for something more analytical. “What do you mean?”

Tim shifted in his chair. “Home’s never really been places to me. Maybe ‘cause I moved around a lot when I was younger, but it’s never the place that means most. Daisy doesn’t live with you. She’s your home still, and right now she’s got a new tenant.”

“So, is me buying dinner how I pay rent, or…?”

Half-smiling, Tim threw the stress ball at her. She caught it from midair before it could make contact, almost without even looking. “It’s not a perfect analogy, alright? Doing my best over here.”

Though she rolled her eyes at him, there was fondness there. It didn't last.

“What do you do when you try to go home and find that everything inside was rearranged?”

Tim tried not to think of Sasha. Of the thing that replaced her, rearranged her inside and out. Of the thing that he — shoulders, hands, mouth — believed _was_ her. 

He didn’t succeed.

“You try to understand what changed, and you reacclimate. Maybe stay on a friend’s couch for a bit if you need to.” A roundabout way to offer support, but with her nod he was pretty sure she got it. “Oh, but here I take rent only in stupid novelty socks, the dumber the better. Weed socks are grounds for permanent eviction.”

Basira rolled her eyes again, then paused. “...You can’t even change clothes.”

“It’s like you’ve never even _heard_ of collector’s items.”

When she threw the ball back at him, he let it sail right through. Her subsequent cursing maybe wasn’t a sign she felt _better,_ but at least she was saying what she thought.

Progress.

* * *

“Stoker?”

Tim flinched with a hiss as hot coffee sloshed from his mug onto his fingers. At the office door stood Lin, her slacks ironed to crisp angles and short black bob neatly in place.

“Hey, Lin.” Any other day he would have given her the usual gentle teasing to call him Tim — five years in the same publishing house, they were on a first-name basis at this point. Any other day, any other time, any other reality. Tim still wasn’t quite sure this was real. 

How could it be? Danny was alive. Danny was alive, none of this could be real because Danny was alive and fine and going to text Tim asking for a hand in covering just a bit of the month’s rent at his place and none of this was real.

“...Stoker?”

Tim managed to keep from flinching again, but it was a near thing. “Sorry, I— Sorry. What did you need?”

“I just… I wanted to say that I’m glad to see you back after the leave of absence.” As usual, Lin spoke in measured words that wasted no emotion. Not stiff, normally. Stiff now. “And I’m sorry for your loss.”

Missing. Presumed dead. No, officer, he hadn’t seen Danny recently. No, officer, he didn’t know where Danny last went. No, officer, Danny hadn’t been acting strange. 

Tim didn’t know if he wanted to scream or throw something or jump out the window at his back. Maybe all three of them at the same time. Make a real show of it. 

“Thanks, Lin.” Delayed response. She looked uncomfortable. “Means a lot.” Lie. He did a lot of lying these days.

No, officer, he didn’t know who might have last seen Danny alive.

Another nod, and she left. No flowers, no cards, thank _Christ._ The platitudes were bad enough. If he saw one more bit of cardstock with some pastel watercolor and a Hallmark logo on the back, he would lose his damn mind. 

Editing work was tedious more often than not, and most days Tim didn’t mind. He was good at little details. He was good at putting the pieces together and seeing the whole. He was good at sitting at this small, quiet desk, in this small, quiet office, and letting people die.

Focus. Focus. 

When did he run out of coffee?

Whatever. Break room would have more. Maybe he just needed the walk. Maybe he just needed to move. Maybe he should have moved, should have done something. 

Focus. 

It was a sour irony that his concentration was so narrowed on itself that he stumbled, foot caught on the edge of a small rug in the hall just outside the break room. The mug went one way, he went another and landed hard on one knee and hand. 

Impact broke the mug. Handle snapped clean off. Fucking fantastic. 

Tim took a moment to breathe. What had his old therapist said about not letting anger overwhelm? They talked plenty about it. Some bull about predisposition and learned behaviors and all. Doc Jeff had protested the phrase _broken home,_ but Tim heard it too many times behind well-meaning whispers and saccharine pity to agree. 

Too late. Didn’t matter. Everything they’d talked about way back then had been old hurts. This was not an old hurt. It was also not a new hurt. This was a future hurt, a future _without_. Too long, too empty, not real, what the hell was the point? Too little too late and the fucking mug was still broken. 

He leaned over to pick up the two separate pieces, but as soon as the larger was in his hand he wanted nothing more than to pitch it at the far wall and scream some obscenities. Maybe it’d be cathartic. Maybe it’d be satisfying. Maybe it was the harsh ripping thing he needed to shatter this fake, fake, fake world and go back to when everything made sense and Danny was alive and Tim wasn’t a miserable coward. 

His hands were still. His head was blank. His chest was cold. Hollow.

“...doesn’t make sense to me.”

From the break room. Conversation. Didn’t matter.

“I know, it’s strange. I mean, I haven’t gone through anything like that, but I’ve known some people who have, and it was totally different.”

Voices hushed. Too much energy to tune them out with nothing else in his head to fall back on.

“Right? I was thinking the same thing. I thought there’d be… I don’t know, sadness. Maybe some tears or something. Lin mentioned he was in a bad way, so I was ready for some—”

“—Some tears, some _grief._ I swear, I went in there to bring him the card I got, just something to let him know we’re here for him, and he looked at me like I killed his brother myself!”

Oh.

“Shh, that’s _awful!”_

“It’s the truth! I was here with tissues and all, and he’s biting the head off anyone who looks at him wrong!” 

“I know, I know. Jenn told me she went to see if he wanted anything from that pastry shop down the road since she was stopping by on her lunch, and he just ignored her! Stared at his computer like she wasn’t even there!”

Jenn had come to his office? Huh. 

“I want to help, I do! It’s terrible and everything, of course it is, but when he acts like _that—_ ”

“Right? Just goes to show you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped, I guess.” 

Someone was playing music. Distant. Sounded like a pipe organ. Why the hell would someone be playing that? Why here, why now, why anywhere he could hear it? The notes came slow and gentle and tasted of arsenic hatred. 

He stood. He was standing. Was he holding the fractured remnant of the mug still? Maybe. Wasn’t like it mattered. 

The break room went silent as soon as he came in. He didn’t know what sort of expression he wore, but it had to be awful with how the two at the table went pale. 

“T-Tim! Sorry, did you… did you need something?”

He turned the full force of his glare on the one who spoke. “No. I don’t need anything from you. If I want your help, I’ll ask you for it. Don’t hold your breath.”

The second chimed in. “We’re just concerned about you—”

“Sure you are,” he laughed. Harsh, clanging, same tempo as the g-ddamn organ music someone was _still_ playing. “You don’t give a shit. We’ve had three conversations at _most._ Three too many.” 

First one sat forward. “I know you’re going through a lot, but that’s uncalled for. Everyone here just wants to—”

“Wants me to be a weepy mess? Or, or all stoic and reserved? Soon as I care about what the hell you want me to do, I’ll get right on that. ‘Til then you can piss off, give all your bullshit pity to someone who gives a damn about you feeling all righteous.” Lip curled, teeth bared. “You can pat yourself on the back and know you’re still a little do-gooder angel. Have a great g-ddamn time.” 

“Stoker.”

Tim whipped around to face the door of the break room with fire in his throat. _“What?”_

Unruffled by the hatred flooding out of him in torrents, Lin looked between him and the two at the table, still pale and shrunken. “Stop.”

“You didn’t hear the shit they were saying, you don’t get to—”

“It’s not worth your job.” 

“Oh, fuck _off!”_ Tim’s skin felt too tight, constricting, like he was about to burst with all the _everything_ building up in him. Uni therapist told him some way to handle that. Said it was common in borderline people. Didn’t fucking matter, because none of it was built for this. This was more than any of it could ever handle. “This place could burn to the ground with all of us inside for all I care! My brother is _dead_ and I—” 

Voice break. Fuck. Fuck. 

A gentle hand made contact with his arm. No. Hell no. He ripped himself free and turned back on the ones at the table, the nearest one with hand still outstretched. The hand drew back right quick at Tim’s vicious snarl. 

Everyone was looking at him. Waiting for that perfect delicate breakdown they could soothe and hug away. 

Tough. They could all go to hell. 

Someone was still playing the _fucking calliope._

Lin backed away from the door in the nick of time to get out of his warpath as he stormed out. Maybe she told the ones still in the break room that they were right and just needed to weather this hurricane around him. Maybe they were commiserating. Maybe she told them to go to hell, same as him. Maybe she didn’t say anything at all. Each possibility pissed him off in its own way until Tim choked on vitriol. 

Fuck them. Fuck all of them. They could go to hell, and he’d see them there. Greet them at the gates. Maybe he’d escort them his own damn self.

The same day, Tim put in his two weeks. He showed up for none of it.

* * *

“Mr. Tim!”

Tim turned around in the nick of time to see Juno charging right for him — and then, when the kid didn’t stop in time, right through him. 

“Junebug! What’re you doing in spooky central?”

Hannah, just a few paces behind, waved to Tim. “He asked to come inside when Isaac came by to pick me up from work. He wanted to show you—”

In a flash, Juno turned and frantically waved his hands at his mother. _“Shhh!”_

“Well, go on then!” Hannah said as she put her own up with a small, indulgent smile. 

Grinning, Tim looked to Juno. “What’d you want to show me?”

Rather than speak, Juno grinned right back at Tim to show a telltale gap in his teeth. 

“Woah, when did that happen?” 

“Thith morning!” Juno lisped with his mouth still held wide to show off the missing tooth. “At breakfath!”

“You gonna stick it under your pillow tonight?”

Juno nodded emphatically. “I asked Mummy to bring home something to catch fairies with, ‘cause if this lady is taking my teeth I wanna know what she does with them!”

“I told him she was a dentist,” Hannah said with exasperated humor. “He didn’t buy that.”

Tim burst out laughing. “Makes sense. Make sure you take plenty of notes, guest researcher Masters.”

“The tooth fairy’s not a dentist. My dentist doesn’t take any of my teeth!”

“Not yet,” Tim said. Spooky ominous ghost man hours never stopped.

Juno was unfazed. “Well, ‘til he does, we don’t know if dentists and tooth fairies do the same stuff.”

“Spoken like a true researcher. Hey, Iook — I’ve got something cool too.” Tim held out his arm. “Whole thing’s there, not just the hand.”

In an instant, Juno flopped himself over Tim’s extended forearm, almost sending Tim right onto the Institute lobby floor with the sudden weight. Juno attempted to grab Tim around the bicep to steady himself, but without any fabric between them his hand went right through. 

“Wo-oah!” Tim took a dramatic step to the side, playing up how unbalanced he was. Juno clutched on as best he could with his sleeve-clad arms, laughing the whole while. 

“Careful, Junie!” called Hannah, but she didn’t sound too worried. 

With a wide swing, Tim turned to face her, his whole body sagged to one side from Juno’s weight. “Ma’am, have you seen a Mr. Juno Masters anywhere? All I can find is this very loud, strange growth.” 

Juno laughed again, trying again to grab onto Tim’s shoulder with no luck. Tim only just caught the words passed between some other Institute staff. 

“Is that… safe?”

“I don’t know, I mean…”

Juno swung down, arms wrapped around Tim but feet on the floor in an attempt to drag him to the side. 

“Like, we wouldn’t let a kid play with anything in artifact storage.” 

“I don’t think he’d…”

“Not on _purpose,_ no.” 

With another laugh, Juno let go. “You can make your arm be there, but if it goes away, can you make your back do it?” 

Tim had to make sure Juno didn’t hear the others. Wasn’t something he needed to worry about. “Hey, only one way to find out.”

“I know Renee said she saw him covered in _blood_ the other day—”

“What? No way.”

“He has _corpse eyes,_ I don’t think blood is hard to believe.”

Tim shook Juno off his arm, then focused for a moment. “Alright, hop up.”

He crouched a bit, and Juno climbed onto his back without hesitation. 

“Oh— Jesus, should his mum let him do that?”

“If he does something with _death_ or whatever, do you think he might just… suck out the life from people? Like that kid.”

“Holy hell, mate.”

“You’ve been in artifact storage, you know what kind of stuff all these things do!”

Juno’s weight shifted on Tim’s back like he was sitting further upright and surveying the lobby. Tim made sure he didn’t face the ones talking — if Juno didn’t know they were there, he might not pay attention to the conversation. 

“Mummy! Mummy, look!” 

Hannah waved, but her smile was tight. She must have heard, too. Probably worried about Juno now, not that Tim blamed her. They weren’t _wrong._

“Careful, buddy,” Tim said as he compensated for the weight shift. Holding him up here without arms to keep him there or a neck for Juno to throw his own arms around was difficult, but Tim kept steady. If nothing else, he could do that.

“Just— Hannah, are you sure that’s a good idea? We don’t know what he—”

“Thank you for the concern, but I’m perfectly able to keep my son safe. I don’t need your input.”

Oh. Huh.

“It’s kind of dangerous, right?”

“No.”

“But he might hurt—”

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do.”

“I just think some caution is—”

“You’re welcome to think so. Being this close is probably dangerous, then, if you really think he’s going to suck out your soul like a vacuum cleaner. You should get out of danger and go do your _job,_ no caution needed. I’ll continue doing mine.”

“Mr. Tim!” Juno bounced in his perch. “Go over there, I wanna see if I can touch the ceiling!”

He did as requested, as focused as he could be on staying present and solid. “Here, can you get it?”

“Almost…” 

Tim glanced up to see Juno straining upright, small fingers splayed. 

“Maybe if I…” Almost too quick for Tim to adjust, Juno lifted one leg to rest his knee on Tim’s shoulder blade, then pushed off that to gain another couple inches. 

“Woah—” Tim dropped the manifestation on his lower back in an instant to make sure that shoulder was solid, the feeling almost like shifting gears a little too fast while driving.

A cheer from above his head. “Got it!” 

“Nice!”

“Alright, chickadee,” said Hannah from behind them. When Tim turned around, the other two were nowhere to be seen. “We’ve left your dad and Penny in the car long enough.”

“Aw,” Juno complained, but slid down off Tim’s back without argument.

Tim crouched. “Hey, up top.” He lifted a hand for a high five. 

Juno went to meet it with gusto, then stared in absolute betrayal when his hand flew right through. 

“Whoops, sorry. Pull your shirt sleeve over your hand and give it another go. Promise it’ll be there this time.”

Swing and a miss.

_“Hey!”_

“Alright, alright, one more try.”

This time he cut out the teasing, and Juno made contact. It was silent as anything that touched Tim, but Juno’s cry of _“Pow!”_ made up for that lack.

“Say goodbye to Mr. Tim, Juno. You can come back to play more later.”

Juno went up on his tiptoes with a grin. “Bye!”

“Good seeing you, Junie.” He stood again to meet Hannah’s eyes. “Will, uh… Will he be back? Kid’s busy, I’m sure.” He needed to give her an out, just in case. Those people hadn’t been wrong.

There was a short flash of anger in Hannah’s eyes. “He will be.” She rested a hand in Juno’s bun of thin braids. “I’m not in the business of separating my kids from their friends.”

“Are you sure, because—”

“Yes.” Her tone allowed for no argument. “I don’t have any more patience for all that from you than I do them. Come on, Juno.” She sent one more smile Tim’s way. “He’ll be back before long. There’s plenty of teeth he has left to lose.”

“And I gotta keep researcher— Um…” Juno looked at Tim, uncertain.

“Stoker.”

“I gotta keep researcher Stoker in on my tooth fairy science!”

“I’ll be ready to check out those research notes then,” Tim replied with a smile. “See you.”

One more wave, and they were gone. 

As Tim made his own way out the door, he paid little mind to the people around him. He didn’t have to in order to feel every single bright point of light. 

Were the ones talking right about what he might do? Could he just… grab one of those lights and _pull?_

It wasn’t that he wanted to. He didn’t. It was that he might _have_ to. He swore to Basira, after all, that he’d find some way to fight back against whatever might come for them.

His hands were already bloody. They’d been bloody since the first time he— he Witnessed. 

Tim wouldn’t take it back even if he could, but it was with Juno’s round face and his mother’s resilient trust in mind that he wondered what fallout his oath might bring.

* * *

_Your Choice, Witness._

No one else dies. 

_The staring Archivist pulled through the dance. The Detective stumbling on with half-clear eyes. They are both fated. Their wounds must go somewhere. Will you carry them?_

No one else dies.

_The Archivist will have a Choice to make, regardless. He may die anyway._

Not here. No one else dies.

_Everything has a cost. Will you repay this debt? Will you walk for the End?_

No one else dies.

_You cannot take a Choice like this back._

This is mine. They won’t take it from me. No one else dies.

_The Witness and the Circus._

Yes.

_Even the one wearing your brother’s skin?_

_..._ Yes. He’s already dead.

_Very well._

* * *

“The Witness?”

“That’s what Oliver said, yeah.”

“Hm.”

Tim leaned back in the chair across from Jon’s desk. “Now, which _hm_ is that?”

“What?” Jon said as he looked up from a scattering of statements across his desk. 

“Which _hm_ ,” Tim repeated. “Is that the, _I have a theory but don’t want to spell it out in case I’m wrong_ hm, the, _I have half a theory that I don’t want to say because I’m not sure how to word it yet_ hm, or the, _the Eye is imparting fantastic, pertinent information, please standby_ hm.”

Jon squinted at him. “I doubt you have any examples of that last one, considering I don’t think it’s ever happened.”

“It’s theoretical. Guessing it’s not the lucky winner this time, then?”

“No, it’s— it’s just… just, _hm_.” Jon tucked his pen behind his ear, accidentally knocking the permanent marker already there to the floor. He spared it a short glance, but didn’t bother picking it up again. “How many _hm_ s do you have cataloged?”

Tim took a moment to think. “Back in research days, I think William and I narrowed it down to… a dozen, maybe?”

“William?” 

“Yeah, William. Y’know, Brazillian guy, short, curly hair? Always wears those _great_ patterned ties?”

A beat, then Jon shrugged with palms up in a clear sign of, _I have no idea what you’re talking about.  
_

“...Did you ever talk to anyone in research besides me and Sasha once she left practical?”

“I did,” Jon replied in half-hearted protest. “There was— I mean, I talked to— to Tom, sometimes—”

“Library staff. Try again.”

“Surely, ah, Lupita—”

“Financial.”

A long pause. “Ben! Ben was in research, surely. I talked to them sometimes.”

“There’s one, nailed it!” Tim said with a laugh. “But yeah, I haven’t kept proper count since then. It’s probably the same amount, but trade in most of the _hm_ s meaning contempt or complete disdain for _hm_ s about how much our life sucks.”

“...I suppose that’s a worthy exchange, yes.”

Jon went back to his work without any sign of discomfort over Tim’s continued presence. Between him, Daisy, and the Eye itself, he guessed Jon was plenty desensitized to others watching him. It passed the time for Tim, anyway. Sure beat wandering the city waiting for someone to die and the End to tell him he needed to care about it in particular.

The shuffle of pages kept time’s tempo as well as any clock. Jon’s mutters were far less regular and far more entertaining — Tim was pretty sure he’d cursed in at least eight different languages at this point, and it’d only been a— an hour, or… It hadn’t been long. 

After a while that Tim didn't bother trying to clock, Jon looked up. “Oh, I forgot to tell you — Rosie sent me an interesting new statement the other day.”

Tim didn’t look up from where he was carefully balancing a pen on his finger. “Oh yeah?”

“It’s not the first one we’ve gotten citing angels, but she thought this would be of particular interest.” 

“Are we talking _wheels-within-wheels, covered in eyes, burning nightmare_ angels? Or is this the _pretty white boy with gold curls and a lyre_ sort?”

“That was actually the most interesting part of the statement.” There was a building thread of amusement in Jon’s voice. “The woman described swerving into a tree one morning and ending up in a quite severe car accident. Right after, someone came over to her car.”

This… sounded familiar. Tim looked up at Jon with slight apprehension.

“He said he was there to help her. Came from nowhere, she said, and when she asked if he was an angel, he said yes.”

“...Right.”

“She described him as a tall, handsome man with long black hair tied up in a bun. Broad-shouldered, she said, and looked southeast Asian. She also mentioned he had strange scars on his face, neck, and arms.” 

Tim stared at Jon for a long moment. “That could be anyone.” 

“So, have you been telling everyone you’re an _angel,_ because—”

“She’s the one who asked if I was!” Tim protested as he tossed his hands in the air. “I just went along so she might feel better, I don’t know! In my defense, I was about eight layers into dissociation thirty seconds before she asked, maybe I panicked.” 

Jon gave a rare laugh. “Yes, well, just know you’re making an impact on the masses.”

“Always do.” Tim went back to balancing the pen. “Did Rosie say how she looked? Could she walk?”

“I think she mentioned crutches,” Jon replied as he turned back to his work.

“Which means she didn’t lose the leg, at least.” 

Without looking up, Jon said, “There was some severe bone damage and it’s likely she’ll always have a limp, but yes, she kept the limb.” A beat. “Hm.”

“...Well, mark that one down as our first _hm_ over the Eye being useful.”

Papers shuffling. Pen balancing. Time passing. 

Jon broke the quiet as he cleared his throat. “Tangentially related, but I was recently thinking about the, um… The afterlife.”

“Kinda grim, boss.” The apparent non-sequitur didn’t throw Tim. Angels to the afterlife was far from the furthest jump Jon’s train of thought had ever made. 

Talking about the afterlife itself was far less easy to roll with. Tim’s knee bounced as he watched the pen teeter back and forth where it lay on his fingertip.

“Yes, well. Do you remember when you first got here, what you said about it?”

That first arrival wasn’t the most pleasant of memories, but far from his worst. “Just about Oliver talking to me, yeah? How voices felt _wrong,_ there.”

Jon shook his head. “You talked more before that, but considering that was when your injuries first began to appear, it’s no surprise that you might not have realized.”

_Not my injuries. Yours._

“...No, I didn’t. Why?” G-d, he hated talking about all this. He was content to leave the nothing everything void as a mere footnote, with only the barest traces of memory to give it vague shape. 

Jon set down the pages he was holding to look at Tim. “You said something about _nowhen,_ and repeated _the nothing_ a few times. Was there a physical _place_ you were in?” 

“No. It was nothing. That’s it.” There weren’t any other words Tim could give to describe it. Human language was made for _things,_ and this was the antithesis.

Jon wasn’t satisfied. “But you said something about it hurting. Did you have a— a body, or some other physical form?”

“There was nothing, Jon.” The pen slipped from Tim’s hand, and he didn’t bother to catch it. A strange pressure built in the back of his throat, pushing for more. 

“So how did that sensation manifest, if you didn’t have any form to attach it to?” Jon’s silver eyes narrowed. Studying. 

“Jon—”

“I just want to understand how it worked — I don’t know very much about the End. Was that pain in some sort of distinct shape or pattern, as if it affected a _body_ even though there wasn’t one present?”

Static words slipped through before Tim could even begin to stop them. “It was everything, but there was nothing. It was everywhere in nowhere, all the time and there was no time.”

Wide, silver, unblinking, watching, staring eyes fixed on Tim. “Was it anything related to the injuries you received in the Unknowing?”

“No.” Calliope. “I barely remembered there was anything outside it, all I knew was—” Grit teeth shut the words inside. 

Crackleburn watching static eyes pushed. “All you knew was what?”

“I knew I needed to find—” Teeth dug into his lower lip. Shut. Void pushed in the back of his head. He wasn’t pinned to the chair, because that would imply he had a body. A form. A weight or presence or meaning beyond watching and being watched. 

No more words. Static grew. Invitation by force. Speak. Explain. 

“I was looking for my— I needed to apolog—” 

Syllables pressed against the back of his teeth as his jaw ached with how hard he clenched it shut. Letters piled in his throat like bile. The weight of the sky lashed him where he sat, but he’d lifted that before. He’d lifted it before and would do it again.

Move. Break the all-consuming stare. Go.

The sky held him down, but still he lifted one hand and poured his all into making it _real._ A clumsy, broad swipe. 

The mug of pens shattered against the wall along with this short, infinite, awful moment.

A blink, and the opalescent silver in Jon’s eyes faded back to smoky grey. 

“Why did—” Mild confusion made way for growing horror as Jon looked back to Tim. “Oh g-d, Tim, I’m— I’m sorry, I—”

Tim knew he should say something. Say he understood, kind of. Say he knew how it felt when purpose and patronage blanketed everything that was once abhorrent with that tempting draw of justification. 

With bile-letters and poison still clogging his throat, it was impossible. If he opened his mouth he didn’t know which would come first — awful truths? Old, well-worn anger? 

It wasn’t until the sun blinded him that Tim realized he was outside the Institute. 

Copper filled his mouth. Static-nothing void filled his head. It was a long time before either faded, and only then did he return.

* * *

“Oh my g-d, Tim?”

The sound of a voice he hadn’t heard in years pulled him upright. 

“Sasha?!”

In an instant, Sasha rushed over. She hesitated, paused on the balls of her feet, but as Tim raised his arms she met him for a brief but firm hug. 

“Look at you, you look great!” Tim said with a grin as he pulled back.

It was true — the boxy glasses that’d once hidden most of her face were gone, replaced with a round, wireframed pair that showed off her warm brown eyes and accentuated her freckles. Her hair was much longer now; a soft, brassy blonde rather than its old chestnut color. 

“You do too!” Sasha’s face lit up with her own smile, and Tim couldn’t hear even a hint of strain in her voice. “You— you kept your hair long!”

“You had some damn good foresight when you asked me to grow it out. Thought it suited me enough to keep around — same as you, looks like.”

Sasha tucked a strand that’d slipped out of her ponytail behind her ear. “Well, I promise you can cut yours now if you want.”

With a wave of his hand, Tim said, “It’s part of the Stoker look now.” 

“Heaven forbid we change that,” she laughed. “What are you doing at the Magnus Institute?”

“Day one of the job! I’m joining the research team. I needed a change, y’know?” Keeping up his old cheer had felt impossible these days, but it came with no trouble when talking to Sasha. Thinking about why he was at the Institute threatened that. 

Sasha’s face fell in what his head immediately categorized as pity, but the benefit of doubt their old friendship gave pulled him to see it as the sympathy it truly was. “Right, I… I heard about Danny. G-d, Tim, I’m so sorry.” 

“Thank you.” Unlike every other time someone gave him those same words, he actually appreciated the thought. She knew Danny, after all. She cared. “I— I just needed the change of pace. After all that, I mean.” And answers. And a plan. And something, _anything_ he could do. 

Too little, too late, of course, but it was better than nothing at all.

Sasha reached out to take Tim’s hand, bangs brushing her glasses as she tilted her head. “Well, I’ll be glad to see you around, then. I’m moving to practical research soon, so I don’t know how much we’ll work together, but I’ll make sure to come and bother you plenty.”

Tim laughed at that, and it was only half forced. “I’ll look forward to it.” In the past, he would have suggested getting drinks after work that evening. Tighten his grip on her hand, maybe. Flash that Stoker-brand smile, the works.

No. No, Sasha would see right through his bullshit. He had plenty of one night stands these months in some effort to get a few hours of dreamless sleep after, but he wouldn’t with Sasha. Not like this. 

In the end, she took the initiative to squeeze his hand in her own, then let go. “Come find me on your lunch break, okay? There’s a cafe near here that I usually go to, we can stop in together.” 

Another nod, another half-true smile, and she was gone. 

Managed to talk to one person he knew from before… from _before_ without lighting that bridge on fire. Pinnacle of human interaction right there. 

Day one was uneventful, as he should have expected despite the impatience burning at his heels. No mystical tome fell from the ceiling titled, _Traveler’s Guide to London’s Most Haunted Circuses._ None of the employee portals or informational boards along walls had a section labeled _Revenge and You: How to Strike Back Against Forces You Barely Fucking Understand, Stoker._ All Tim had to go on was a library he only had clearance for half of and a handful of fellow researchers who, unlike him, seemed to have been ghost hunting hopefuls since birth. 

Hell, six months ago Tim would’ve said he didn’t believe much in the supernatural without thinking twice. Ghosts, maybe? Energy had to go somewhere, sure, so he could buy that — _kind of._ Anything beyond that, no way. Now, here he was in the spooky hub for spooky things. This was his life now. Publishing was done. Career, trashed. Fine. He was the one still alive, deserved or not. If a measly five years was all retribution cost, he’d consider it a light price. 

It was with those cheery thoughts Tim made his way to the half-accessible library. If he got an idea for how the security system worked, he might know who he’d have to sweet talk into getting in — or, if all his charm failed, swiping a key card or two. Desperate times and all. 

The door to the second half of the library was an innocuous one. Store must’ve been out of signs reading _Spookiest, Evilest Tomes Through Here._ There had to be at least one in this place bound in skin or some other creepy nonsense, Tim would put money on it.

As far as security went, it was nothing besides a sturdy-looking lock and the small scanner for employee IDs Tim expected. No telling what position one needed to be to get access, of course. It didn’t matter quite yet. He didn’t want to try and get in without knowing for sure some sort of useful information was there — check the records he had clearance for, first. If he was going to start breaking rules, he needed to make sure a good amount of people here liked him enough to write it off. 

Plus, if they liked him it might be easier to nab their Institute ID if it came down to it. In any other situation he’d feel plenty bad about thinking of his new coworkers as means to an end, but this was different. This was for Danny. If it meant wiping whatever creatures took his brother off the face of the Earth, Tim didn’t care what the cost was. Every single person in this building could either help him or hinder him. That was it. 

Every single one, except Sasha. If he could help it, he’d keep her out of the crossfire. 

“Did you want to take a look?”

Tim jerked out of his thoughts to see a suited man with sharp grey eyes watching him with an interest that Tim couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

“Just curious, trying to acclimate to the place and all!” he answered with a good amount of enthusiasm to hide his surprise.

“Of course.” The man held his hand out. “Elias Bouchard, head of the Institute.”

“Tim Stoker.” He gave a winning smile as he shook hands with his boss’s boss’s boss, the one Danny called his get-out-of-shit grin. Head of the whole damn place, huh? Lucky him.

Elias gestured to the door. “Did you want to look around in the second wing of the library?”

“Really?” Another cover. What exactly was big bossman looking for here, giving a day one researcher personal access to some higher security Murder Tomes or whatever the hell else the Institute kept in there? 

Maybe Tim was being cynical. Elias might just want to encourage curiosity in his staff, get them interested enough to work hard and gain that clearance so they could explore to their heart’s content.

Yeah, right. 

“I don’t think any of the library staff will concern themselves with your clearance if I’m the one who opened the door.” Rather than wait for a reply, Elias slipped a card from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and swiped it. 

Oh, what the hell. Got him in the place, didn’t it?

“There you are,” Elias said as he opened the door in full and gestured for Tim to go in. “I doubt anyone will ask, but if they do, feel free to say I give full permission.”

Tim kept his shoulders relaxed and one hand in his pocket, purposefully casual. “Sure thing, boss. Thanks for the access.”

Another one of those strange smiles. “Of course, Tim. Do be careful — the books locked in cases are locked for a reason.”

An odd goodbye, not that Tim much cared. If it had nothing to do with circuses, Russian or otherwise, he wasn’t interested. Anything with skin too, even if thinking about _that_ made him want to throw up. 

He was both disappointed and unsurprised when, an hour later, he came up empty. Maybe if he hadn’t rushed as much as he did, he might have had some success, but it was difficult to take his time when he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

And, when the feeling of eyes on his back still had yet to fade, he could only chalk it up to being the new guy in the office. He just needed to give it time, and that’d fade. 

Whatever. He didn’t intend on being at this place long, and he sure as hell didn’t intend to talk to Bouchard again.

* * *

“Tim, can you hand me that pen? No the— the other one.”

He obliged. Martin didn’t look up from the expense forms he was filling out as he took the pen from Tim’s hand, not realizing that as he did so his fingers passed right through Tim’s palm. 

Tim watched closely and— yep, there it was. _Peter Lukas_ in flawless forgery. Martin really did run the place.

King of a nightmare kingdom, lucky him. Or, king in responsibility without whatever benefits came with sitting that throne. Maybe if he had the position long enough he’d pick up whatever all-seeing Eye bullshit Elias had. He certainly wouldn’t be as much of a demon Elias was with it. Wouldn’t pull the _apply trauma direct to brain_ trick, anyway. Not when he knew just how it felt.

_Did you mourn, say, him?_

Not the time.

In Martin’s position, Tim wasn’t sure it was even possible, but he had to ask.

“You gonna quit?”

Martin’s lips pursed in irritation. “Did Jon put you up to this?”

“Uh, no,” Tim replied with eyebrows raised. “Just thought it was worth checking if any of my friends are going to run off and gouge their eyes out.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about it, because I’m not.” Martin’s voice was clipped. “So if you need to report back that I’m not second-guessing my decision, go right ahead.”

“Already said I’m not reporting to Jon.” Martin didn’t say anything to that, head still lowered over his work, so Tim continued. “Jon asked if you’d quit, then?”

“He asked me to quit with him. I said no.” Matter-of-fact. “Did he not tell you?”

Tim shrugged. “Not directly, but I expected he would. It’s not like I could do it anyway.”

“I can’t do it any more than you!” Martin exclaimed as he sat upright. 

Silent, Tim snagged one of Martin’s pens and pointed it towards his own eye. A swipe towards his face passed the pen directly through his head. “I think you’re probably a _little_ more able than me.”

“Well— Okay, yes, I’m physically capable, but that doesn’t mean I _can.”_ With two fingers, Martin rubbed his temple. “Jon can’t either.” 

As Tim set Martin’s pen down again, he asked, “What do you mean?”

“If this place is what’s keeping him alive, him gouging his eyes out to quit would just end with him dead.” The sound of paper shifting went quiet as Martin paused in sorting various forms. “Would that kill him? Quitting?”

Tim took a moment to think. Jon was alive, yes. Very recently, he was dead. The only reason he lived was because he chose to. The only reason he was able to make that choice was because Tim bought him some time. Two powers, two choices. Nothing natural. Nothing _human._

“I don’t think leaving here would kill him, but I don’t think he’d survive it.”

Martin’s eyes narrowed. “...What does that mean?”

“Like— Alright, I’m kind of guessing here, but I’m pretty sure he’d live if he quit.” Tim sat forward in his chair as he gestured, thoughtful. “He pulls the Archivist tricks with his words as much as he does his eyes, and he doesn’t need to _see_ to take statements.”

“So… he _could_ quit.”

“Maybe. He’d live, but he needs his sight. I think vision’s like a— a filter for him. He sees too much, yeah, but his sight gives some kind of framework to process tied to how humans conceptualize things.”

Martin gave a slow nod. “Right.”

“All this other nonsense, it’s about as far from human and how we see reality as it gets. If Jon loses some way to process all the stuff the Eye dumps right into his skull, I think it might just end up that he gets all the same information without any sort of filter,” Tim continued. “Hundred percent eldritch truths, one less way to conceptualize it in a way he can process without getting more eldritch himself.”

“But he’d remember what sight was _like,”_ Martin argued. “He wouldn’t lose that filter entirely.”

Tim sat back in his chair again. “He’d remember for a while, sure, but not long. If he had a blindfold or something, it might be different since his sight wouldn’t be _gone,_ just put away. Blinding, though… I don’t know. He’d live, but beyond? Hard to say, but I don’t think it’d go well.”

Martin nodded again, his thoughtful expression making way for one much more resolved as he went back to his work. 

“So, no one’s quitting. That’s that.”

“Melanie did.”

With clear surprise, Martin looked to Tim once more. “She did?”

“Yeah. Not too long ago, I don’t think.”

“...Huh.”

The lack of reply was fair. There wasn’t much you could say to finding out your coworker stabbed herself in the eyes in the most dramatic possible form of a two weeks.

There was no telling how long it was before Martin spoke again. “Would you have done it?”

“What, blinded myself to quit?”

“Mm.”

Tim took a moment to think, but it wasn’t necessary. Not for this. “Yeah. I would’ve.”

“Really?”

“All the shit I did the last year or so I was alive, you think blinding myself would’ve been too much for me?” Tim responded with a rapidly bouncing knee. 

Martin started to reply, then hesitated. “Uh— No, when you put it like that, I suppose not.”

“I was here a hell of a lot longer than I ever planned, so if that’s what it took to get out, I would’ve.” He already used the tunnels as a backdoor into the Institute despite the skin-crawling flashbacks that lingered on the edges of his thoughts and the very real chance of death that came with sticking around in them. A choice that had less chance of fatality, with a much better outcome beyond not having to talk to his coworkers? He wouldn’t have thought twice. 

A long moment of quiet as Martin’s eyes settled somewhere past his desk. “Right.”

“It doesn’t matter for me at this point.” Tim was here on Earth a hell of a long longer than he’d planned, too, and he’d given quitting his all. Could’ve leant some pithy phrase like _Stokers don’t quit_ a poignant new meaning if that was the kind of thing his dad ever bothered to tell him. It wasn’t anything Tim had ever told Danny either. Danny hadn’t needed it. 

“And I’m not going to quit,” Martin said. “Neither is Jon. Do you think Basira or Daisy will?”

“No. Basira’s decided this is her responsibility, and she doesn’t back out on that.” From what she’d told him, _Hussains don’t quit_ sounded like the kind of thing her dad said to her. Like Danny, Tim didn’t think she needed it. “I haven’t talked to Daisy about it, but I doubt she would while Basira and Jon are still here.” 

“Jon?” Months ago there might have been a note of jealousy in that for Tim to tease Martin for, but whatever Martin felt now, Tim couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, they’ve gotten close since he pulled her out of the Buried.”

“...Good.” There it was — not jealousy, but melancholy. Some gratitude, maybe? “He needs other people around him.”

_To replace me,_ he did not say. Tim heard it anyway. 

“And you?”

Martin turned back to his work. “What about me?”

“Do you have other people?”

A quick note, a couple initials, another forged signature. “I do better on my own than Jon does.”

“You sure?”

Pursed lips again. Shit. He’d pushed too much. “Tim, I have a lot I need to get done. I don’t have time to chat. Do you mind?”

“Got it. Quiet as the grave over here.” Tim went to cross one leg over the other, but Martin interrupted. 

“No, I mean… Space, please.”

“...Right. Sure thing.” 

Martin didn’t apologize, but his solid poker face wavered the barest amount. Tim could read between the lines. 

He leaned over the desk to… to do something. Old instinct made him want to give some kind of touch, a hand to the shoulder or _something,_ but there would be no warmth there. Just added weight. 

Instead, he tucked the pen he’d dropped earlier into Martin’s shirt pocket. When Martin looked up, Tim made sure to make eye contact. 

“I’ll see you ‘round, then.” One corner of his mouth lifted in an attempt at his usual easy smile. “Can’t get rid of me that easy.” 

Clear exhaustion and frustration built in Martin’s eyes, but there was a touch of something warm that Tim wouldn’t let slip past. He needed to hold onto every tool he could to push back the Lonely. 

There was no escape for them. Not Tim, not Jon, not Martin. Not Basira, not Daisy. They were in too deep.

Tim? He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t the perfect lynchpin that’d keep all hell from breaking loose. He was nothing more than what he was: one man with a job he hated and a handful of people he wanted to keep safe. An improvement on the last year of his life, when all he had was himself and his prison. Self-imposed isolation? Maybe. Considering the situation it was hard to say. Regardless, he had those people now, and that was what kept him going.

Martin was doing his best to build himself into that same corner Tim died in. Just him, imprisoned, alone. 

Tim knew where that road ended. He’d never been a fan of reruns.

* * *

“Danny? Danny!”

Tim bolted across the car park outside their secondary school to where a few figures grouped outside another form on the ground. As he ran, one of them delivered another few solid kicks to the form’s back.

Without thinking twice, Tim rammed into that one shoulder-first and sent them sprawling. The other two looked at the new arrival in shock, so Tim took advantage of their surprise to plant himself between them and Danny, using every inch of height he had on them and baring his teeth. 

“You all gonna fuck off, or d’you want me to knock a few teeth in like your friend over there first?” he snarled. They didn’t look particularly big, all things considered. Danny likely would’ve been able to take any one of them if they hadn’t come in a group. 

Tim had both size and a few years on them and could make threats all day, but he wasn’t exactly a champion brawler. He’d been in a couple fights before, sure, but here he didn’t love his chances. 

One backed up enough to help the first jackass off the ground. This one’s nose was bloody — couldn’t have been from Tim knocking him down, so Danny must have gotten a few swings in before hitting asphalt. 

The third one made like he was going to try something, so Tim took a step towards him and pulled one arm back, eyes narrow. Jackass number one grabbed number three by the jacket and jerked his head back towards the school building. Number two spat on the ground towards Danny, and Tim damn near swung at him then. 

“Piss off. You try that shit again, I break your jaw.” 

Two tried to sneer like some tough guy, but he looked nervous. Another tense beat, and all three backed off towards the school.

Tim watched to make sure they didn’t try and come back towards Danny. By the time he turned around, Danny was already levering himself to sit upright.

“My hero,” he mumbled with a grin. Tim fell to a crouch to look him over.

His lip was split, and his nose bled. It didn’t look broken as far as Tim could tell, but it wasn’t as if he was too familiar with what a broken nose looked like. The bridge looked straight. Close enough.

“Yeah, you’re lucky they bought it. Would’ve been embarrassing if they came for me anyway and we both got beaten up.” Tim sat back on his heels. “You good to stand?” 

“Only one way to find out!” Cheerful even with a mouthful of blood. Jesus. 

Tim stood and held out one hand. Despite the asphalt burn on the heel of his palm, Danny took it, and together they got him on his feet. Rather than let go, Tim slung that arm across his shoulders — plenty easy considering Danny was almost as tall as him now. 

“So you wanna tell me what the hell all that was?” he asked as they made for his car.

Danny didn’t answer for a bit, and Tim looked over to him. “If you’re concussed, I swear to G-d—”

“Not concussed. I think.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“Yeah, yeah. Lewis — the one you shoved — was being a dick, and I told him to knock it off.”

“And then he just started swinging?” Tim asked as he opened the passenger door of his car and pushed Danny in.

As Tim took his own seat at the wheel, Danny rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I-I mean, he wasn’t stopping, so—”

“Did _you_ swing first?”

“Well—”

_“Danny,”_ Tim sighed as his hand dropped from where he’d been putting the key in the ignition. “The hell did you do that for? You know better than to get in fights.” 

Danny’s jaw set in that stubborn way that always drove Tim up the wall. “Looks like I don’t.”

As they pulled out into the road, Tim shook his head in irritation. “We’ll go to my place and get you cleaned up, then I’ll drop you off at Mum’s. You’re with her this week, yeah?”

Staring out the window, Danny said only, “Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“What is what?”

“You’re being all quiet. What’s the problem?”

Danny finally looked over at Tim. “Can I stay with you?”

“...Everything okay?” Tim asked with no small amount of apprehension. “Did Mum do something?” 

“No, but she will.” 

That didn’t help Tim’s nerves. “She will? What are you talking about?”

Again, the stubborn look. “When she sees me all beat up, and I tell her I picked a fight.”

“You don’t have to say that part.” What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. White lies and all. Better for everyone. “Just say they swung first, she doesn’t have to know.” 

“No. I’m gonna tell her.”

Sat at a red light, Tim took the opportunity to glare at Danny as frustration replaced the apprehension. “Why? What the hell is the point of pissing her off for no reason?”

Rather than say anything, Danny shrugged.

Tim could see the headlines now: _Seventeen-year-old student strangles his fourteen-year-old brother for being completely insufferable, tells police he would do it again._

“Do you like being yelled at? Is that the exciting draw of it?” Tim ran a hand over his face. “Because you _know_ she’ll tell Dad and go on about how it’s all his fault, so you’ll hear it from him too.”

Danny crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged again.

“Stellar reasoning. Great thing to get your teeth knocked in for, no idea what I was thinking.” Tim shook his head as he turned back to driving. “At least you wear contacts now and I don’t have to fix your glasses before they see.”

“That! That’s why!”

Sparing a glance from the road, Tim sent Danny a confused look. “What?”

The stubbornness in Danny’s face solidified further. “Because you do stuff like that all the time, and Mum and Dad don’t get it!”

“...You’re gonna have to take me in from square one on this.” Usually he wasn’t too bad at following Danny’s train of thought, but he had no idea what point B even _was,_ never mind how Danny leapt there from Point A. 

Talking had to make the split in Danny’s lip sting, but it didn’t stop him. “You do stuff like fix my glasses when they break so Mum doesn’t get pissed off about it, or let me stay at your flat when I’m at Dad’s and he’s gone for the week, or— or any of it!”

“And… that’s why you got in a fight?”

“I swung first because Mum and Dad act like I’m better than you or something, and I’m _not!”_ If he sounded upset before, now he was proper incensed. “I’m not, I’m _not_ better than you!”

...Oh. Huh. 

“So, what, you picked a fight to make some moral stand against their garbage?”

“I can’t be some g-ddamn golden kid if I get in fights or whatever.” 

“Language,” Tim said automatically. 

“Shut up.” 

“Hey, I don’t care, but Mum does.” 

Danny threw his hands in the air. “You’re not _listening!_ I don’t care what she wants me to do! You’re the one that got kicked out however many times, you’re the one who has to live in some tiny flat and work all the time you’re not at school to afford it, all because you don’t meet whatever standard they have, so their standard is bullshit!” Arms lowering, Danny looked over to Tim, only to pause. “What?”

Leaned on the wheel, Tim could only watch his passionate little brother. Where did he get this much steadfast determination? Where did he learn how to dig his heels in like this?

Rather than voice any sappy thoughts, Tim knocked Danny in the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Let’s find you some teenage rebellion that doesn’t come with you getting kicked around, huh?”

Danny went to stick out his tongue, only to pause with a hand to his mouth. “Ow.”

“Nice.”

“Shut up.”

The elevator in his building was busted again, so Tim and Danny took the stairs up a few flights with endless complaints from Danny. He was too big for Tim to feasibly carry him up stairs unless it was dire, so Tim made do with one of Danny’s arms over his shoulders and plenty of teasing to kick him into gear.

No small amount of time later, Danny collapsed in relief at Tim’s kitchen table while Tim grabbed a dish towel and wrapped it around a handful of ice. 

“Put this on that eye,” Tim told him, then went for the first aid kit. When he came back, he looked more thoroughly at Danny’s injuries as he rooted through the kit. Ice would help the quickly-swelling black eye, no doubt, but it wouldn’t make it disappear. His nose had stopped bleeding, though blood still crusted around it and across his top lip. The split in his lower lip still bled, and would likely leave a small scar. Roadburn traced up one arm, and there was no doubt a whole rainbow of bruises across his chest. Some scrapes on the back of his neck too, and maybe across his shoulders considering how Danny winced when lifting the makeshift ice pack. 

As he wiped the blood from Danny’s face and pulled out some antibacterial cream, Tim paused. 

“Look, I get— I get why you pulled this, but you’ve _got_ to think through things before you do them, okay?” He opened the box of plasters and held out a half dozen to Danny. “I can’t save you every time you get in over your head.”

Danny traded his now-dripping ice pack for the plasters with as big a smile as he could give without opening the cut on his lip again. “Seems to have worked so far. I’m like a… a circus acrobat or something, with the world’s nerdiest safety net.”

“This the trapeze ones, or the tightropes?”

“Both, obviously.”

Rolling his eyes, Tim cuffed Danny around the head. “Well, someday I’ll go off to uni and you’ll have to figure out how to not go plummeting off the edge of whatever stunt you decided was a good idea on your own.”

“You mean you won’t just drop in from the rooftops every time I piss someone off like some avenging angel?” Danny asked with a laugh. “Relax, Timmy, I’ll be fine. Did you want me to get some bracelet with _WWTD_ on it?”

“No, get one that says _WWTC...MDF. What Would Tim Call Me a Dumbass For?”_

“That’s a little wordy for one bracelet.”

“Put it on a headband then, your head’s big enough.” 

Danny squawked in mock offense as he shoved Tim in the shoulder, Tim laughing the whole while. 

Soon, they would have to get Danny over to their mum’s house. They’d have to come up with some way for him to field her questions, because as big a game Danny talked, there was no reason for him to put up with all her shit, especially since Tim wouldn’t be there for damage control. Soon, Tim would need to go to work, and bring his maths homework with him for when he had downtime. Soon, they’d have to go back to the places they were supposed to be. 

Here, now, Tim resolved to pick up some boxing classes when he could, because as much as he told Danny he wouldn’t always be there, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t always _try._

Here, now, Danny started in on a ramble about sound design in theater, and Tim knew that wherever they were supposed to be, he was exactly where he belonged.

* * *

“Jon?”

With a start, Jon sat upright, then wilted. “O-oh. Tim. I wasn’t sure if— if you’d be back.” Tim could practically taste the guilt in the air. 

“Three things," he said as he dropped into the empty chair, then amended, "Four.”

Jon nodded. There was a strange, skittish look in his eye like he expected to be hit. 

“First off: I hate that compulsion shit as much as I did when I was alive.”

“I know, I’m so—”

_“But,”_ Tim interrupted before Jon could continue self-flagellating. “I understand it a little better now. It’s a hard line to draw between curiosity and the Eye pushing at you.”

“I should still—”

“Somehow know exactly when the terrible eldritch force made of all humanity’s fear that rides on your shoulder twenty-four seven is nudging you around?” Tim was a little tense still, yes, but at the end of the day it wasn’t Jon’s fault. “It’s hard, and I get it. I get it real well these days.” 

“I— right. Yes, right.” The anxiety was far from gone, but Jon didn’t seem quite as much like he was steeling himself for a blow now. 

“Lose the penitent look. The way I see it, we’re square now.”

Confusion replaced guilt. “Square?”

Tim sighed. “Considering I tried to kill you with an axe at the Unknowing and all. That’s thing number two.”

“Look, you weren’t in your right mind, then.” Jon ran a hand along his jaw, fingers catching against the stubble there. “None of us were.”

“You’re right. It’s almost as if the way I thought and acted were influenced by a nightmare creature that controls our reality. Sound familiar?” He didn’t try to abate any of the sarcasm in his words.

The smile Jon gave was faint, made fainter by stubborn guilt. “I appreciate that, but it’s not the same.”

“Agree to disagree.” The rejection came as no surprise. That didn’t mean Tim would let it lie. “How about this: I promise no more axe murder, attempted or otherwise, you promise no more brain scavenging shit on pain of— of exploding people with your mind or whatever it is you might do.”

_“Exploding_ people?” Jon repeated with an incredulous shake of his head. “That seems a little drastic.”

“Maybe for someone less dramatic than you, sure.”

“Dramatic? I’m not dramatic, I—” At Tim’s flat, disbelieving stare, Jon stopped with the flimsy argument. He knew damn well he was no stranger to drama — he was a former theatre kid; drama was inevitable.

“Third: I was thinking.” Tim shifted in his chair as he thought of how to word his next point. “I don’t know if this’ll work or not, but I figure you’d know better than me. You need statements to keep going, right?”

A pause, then Jon nodded. “Yes, I… Yes.”

“And it’s better for you to hear them direct from subject.” 

The guilt was back, tempered with no small amount of desire. Jon was merely a man, after all, a man who had something he needed and who had to get it in a less effective form while knowing full well how much better the alternative was. 

“I can’t do that. The statement giver has nightmares of whatever they give a statement about afterward, and I’m stuck in those nightmares right along with them.” Jon’s thumb rubbed at the opposite wrist; no telling if it was because of old aches, phantom pain, or simply a nervous tic. 

Tim’s arms folded. He’d gone back and forth over this plenty on his most recent walks after Jon went all Archivist on him, about whether he’d be able to do it. Even now he wasn’t sure. He still needed to try, especially if it’d prevent further… episodes.

“If I go Witness a death, then I give you a statement about it, would that do anything for you?”

Jon went to reply, then paused. “Are you suggesting bringing the Eye leftovers of the End’s fear meals?”

“I— I guess I am,” Tim agreed with a short laugh. “Would it work?”

Jon tilted his head as he thought. “I think… Yes, I think so. Probably not as well as it would from a live subject since you don't dream, but better than the stale ones I’ve resorted to,” he said as he eyed a stack of increasingly yellowed pages with distaste. “How often would you give them?”

“I don’t know.” Part of Tim wondered if this was even the best call, leaning into both of their patrons, but considering their inability to leave they’d simply have to cope as best they could. “I can’t do it for all of them. Some are— Some I’m not interested in reliving.”

Jon nodded. “The more afraid a person is, or _you_ are, the better it would carry in a statement, but I understand why some might be… too much.”

“Yeah.” There would have to be a line drawn, not one Tim was eager to find. He could suck it up. If he could make the whole Witnessing bullshit help people in some way, that was one more finger to the End. He could keep it together for that.

“Do you have—” Before Jon could finish, he visibly stopped himself, then spoke again. “If you have anything that might work on hand, I would be glad to take it now.” Kind of him to rephrase, even if he wouldn’t like the answer. 

“Not right now, no.” The only ones that came to mind that were heavy on fear were those like Mallory Joseph or Eli Connor and… no, that wasn’t going to happen. Mallory, never. Eli, the Pitts, those were ones Elias used when he did all _that,_ and Tim knew that dwelling on anything from _that_ would fuck him right up. “Unless you want me to give you some fun bloodstains on this chair, anyway.” 

“Duly noted.” Jon made a good effort to not look disappointed.

“Fair warning for the future, though: it’s pretty likely that any death I give a statement about will make those injuries pop up. You gonna be okay with that?”

“Am I? Are— are _you_ going to be okay?”

A shrug. “They show up anyway, and they don’t hurt.” At least, not in a way a living person could understand. “But since the ones that’ll make a better statement will have more dramatic causes of death, just… be ready for that, I guess.”

Jon nodded, thoughtful. “If that’s the case, then maybe some kind of— I don’t know, a warning, maybe?”

“I can tell you how they died before going into any statement, then you decide if you’re alright hearing more. Sound good?”

“Yes, that works. I would prefer nothing with, um, restraints?” Jon’s thumb rubbed again at his wrist again. “After being kidnapped however many times, it’s just better to— to avoid.”

“Got it.” Whichever supernatural bullshit let Tim time travel, he was going to find it if only so he could hop back to the Unknowing and pull Grimaldi apart piece by piece. Then he’d put the pieces in a wood chipper. Then he’d light the whole damn thing on fire.

He’d make it hurt, was the point. 

Jon cleared his throat. “That aside, you said there was a fourth thing?”

“Right. Right, yeah.” The fourth thing, the thing Tim had been thinking about for a long while. 

He just needed to ask. He needed to. Didn’t make it easier to speak. It felt like he was back at Georgie’s that first time again, holding his arm out and waiting for any spot of hope to shove away before it could grow to be crushed.

He couldn’t get his hopes up. He couldn’t. 

Jon was patient, to Tim’s surprise. He went back to his notes, cross-referencing some statement or other with what looked like the record logs of a library. The whole time, he only glanced up at Tim a few times between writing notes or flipping pages. Patient. Knowing Tim would speak when he was ready.

_Just ask, Stoker. You talked a big game about sucking it up all of two minutes ago. Do it for her._

“I know you can’t just read my mind or whatever,” Tim said after a long pause, each word halting. “And you can’t magically place information in my thoughts.” 

Jon set his work aside to give Tim his full attention. No silver or opal sheen to his eyes. Just smoke and quiet consideration. 

“But if I describe a memory to you, do you think you could—” He swallowed reflexively. “Could you tell me if it’s real?”

Head tilted, Jon asked, “I’m not sure I follow.”

“The— The Not Them. It messes with memories. If I describe a memory, do you think you would be able to tell if it actually happened?”

Clarity and sorrow came into Jon’s eyes as one. “A memory about Sasha?”

“Yeah,” Tim said with a stiff nod. He didn’t know if he wanted an answer — if it was some falsehood spun by the Stranger, he didn’t know what the hell he would do. Cry, probably. At the same time, if it was real… If it was real then that would be something for him to hold onto that was _Sasha._ Really, truly _Sasha_. Tall, blonde, brown, freckled Sasha. 

He couldn’t force his memories to shift and make way for her true appearance — an appearance she fought long and hard for. Thinking about that alone already made his throat grow tight. 

She was more than how she looked. Tim was grateful to Melanie, of course he was, but he needed to be sure Sasha was true in his memories as _who_ she was. 

In the interim of Tim’s melancholy thoughts, Jon looked contemplative. Though the wait was making Tim grow tense, he appreciated it all the same. Jon wanted to be sure before he gave Tim any answer. 

“I… I think so.” More confidently, Jon nodded. “Yes, I think I might be able to tell if the Stranger is present in a memory.”

A knot in Tim’s chest loosened. Only one of many, many more, but a crucial one. 

“Right. Right.” He sat up further in his chair. “Am I— Can we do it now?”

Jon pushed his work to the side without hesitation. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Sure.” Tim took a deep breath. No, he wasn’t eager to go into fun details of his tragic backstory, but he had to know. He needed to be sure that this Sasha, the one who was there for him so long ago, was her. Really _her._

“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but Sasha and I went to the same secondary school. We were pretty good friends even though we lost touch after graduation.” Tim sat back in his chair and let himself feel that old grief. "I even told her about what happened to Danny not long after we met up again. I gave her the same bullshit I gave everyone about needing a change of pace and all, but I don't think I was here more than a month before she cornered me after work and told me to cut all that and tell her what was really going on. She could always see right through me.

“When I was sixteen, I was dating this guy — Henry, his name was. We didn’t last much longer than any of my other relationships at that age, but he was— he was good.”

“So, as long as all of your relationships outside secondary school as well, then?” Jon’s teasing came with heavy caution, but Tim appreciated the levity.

“Yeah, yeah. Sod off. It was after one date that I ended up at her house. I didn’t tell her I was coming over or anything, but she didn’t seem to mind.” If he tried, really tried, he could almost make the image Melanie gave him fit as the one who opened the door. He could almost see the arms around him as brown and freckled. He could almost feel the hair that brushed his cheek when she held him as long and curly rather than short waves. Shoulder to lean on, hand holding the back of his head, mouth telling him she was there. Almost, almost. 

“She didn’t think twice about it. She just… gave me a home.”

**Author's Note:**

> need some danny @ tim feelings with a hefty dose of dramatic irony?? listen to in case you don't live forever by ben platt and cry with me
> 
> scene chronology:  
> 1\. tim and danny walking home from school  
> 2\. tim staying at sasha’s  
> 3\. danny getting beaten up  
> 4\. the confrontation at his publishing house  
> 5\. first day of work at the institute  
> 6\. tim making his Choice™  
> 7\. georgie asking tim to stop coming over  
> 8\. tim and basira talking about living arrangements  
> 9\. playing with juno  
> 10\. jon getting Archivist-y  
> 11\. talk about quitting with martin  
> 12\. tim going to jon about statements and sasha
> 
> coming soon: fog remains dense and tim remains stubborn
> 
> catch me at [@titanfalling](https://titanfalling.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


End file.
